"If Amos Gitai is known here at all, it's mainly by hearsay, as a left-wing director whose documentaries stirred things up on Israeli TV. Gitai is among the few filmmakers engaged in rethinking social documentary. Based on juxtaposition of elements (rather than their arrangement in a narrative flow), his films are lucidly formalist essays on life and work in the Third World. Gitai's use of real-time interviews and his principled camera placement evoke both Errol Morris and Straub/Huillet; his long takes and willingness to uncouple sound and image suggest James Benning. Gitai came to film from architecture, and his austere, elegant work exhibits a striking sense of human scale. The people Gitai interviews always have ample space-temporal as well as physical-in which to talk. There's also an absence of overt judgement; Gitai doesn't take things personally. The subjects in Gitai's documentaries are less individuals than individualized embodiments of predetermined roles-they're sites defined by the flow of history and international capital. Bangkok Bahrain would make an interesting double bill with Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. After a brief explanation of how the Vietnam War created Thailand's sex-tourist industry, Gitai plunges into Bangkok nightlife-albeit showing the bars and hotels as workplaces rather than fantasy lands. The film complements 'female' Bangkok with sequences in 'male' Bahrain, where Thai village men go to earn a living. Gitai's cool imagery is counterpointed by a deft and busy soundtrack. The climactic use of David Bowie's 'China Girl' eclipses Bowie's flashy video as the song's definitive visual articulation." -J. Hoberman, Village Voice